| The aim of my project is to conduct an analysis of twelve American novels and one short story collection, all published between 1920 and 1936, and discuss their relevance in relation to the pacifist/isolationist movement of the period between World War I and World War II. Specifically, I demonstrate that these fictional works, written in the main by World War I veterans (either military or in the ambulance corps), had a profound influence on public sentiment during the course of the 1920s and through that influence were able to indirectly shape foreign policy. Central to my argument is the idea that, given the American public's lack of direct, largely unmediated access to World War I, the post-war authors "scripted" the war in such a way as to cause revulsion, disgust, and anti-war opinions among readers. In effect, they sought to "reverse" the nationalist propaganda that had dominated American print media in the war years. I argue in addition that this effect is unique to the literature of the interwar period; in no subsequent American military endeavors have literary works written by veterans or journalists exerted such a shaping power over government policy. |
